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“Here.” Something was shoved under his nose, while Mircea was still trying to figure out if he dared to put on anything else. He was leaning toward no, and that was before he realized that the thing Horatiu was holding wasn’t the drink he could have really used right now. Instead, it looked like one of the allegorical warnings against sin that pious pilgrims to the city were always snatching up after visiting the brothels, and before stopping by the taverns to drink themselves insensate.
Only hellish painted monsters didn’t blink.
Mircea took the little mirror and examined his face. Half of it was more or less normal, the side turned away from the sun, he assumed. But the rest . . . Mircea swallowed again, taking in the naked skull bubbling with blisters, the reddened, peeling skin of his jaw, and the liquid pus oozing out of a corner of one eye, which was so swollen and puffy that he was surprised he could see at all.
And, frankly, wished he couldn’t.
“It’ll heal,” he croaked, and ignored the expletive that sentiment won him.
He turned back to the table, his eye over a bowl, trying to force out as much pus as possible. Horatiu muttered something just outside Mircea’s damaged hearing as he cleaned up the latest mess. When he was finished, he pulled out a chair and sat down, with an audible sigh.
“All right,” he said, after a moment. “All right.”
“All right what?” Mircea asked, feeling pained and put-upon and grateful and irritated, all at the same time. He appreciated all his servant did for him—he truly did—and he didn’t blame the man for looking disgusted. Mircea had felt his own lip curl at that brief glimpse of the creature in the mirror, so how could he blame Horatiu for a similar expression? But in that case, why didn’t the man leave him alone? Go look at something more attractive, and leave Mircea to what passed for his ablutions?
“We have to talk,” Horatiu said ominously, and Mircea sighed.
Oh, that was why.
“About?”
“About?” Horatiu looked like he was about to smack him again. “What d’ye think? Ye almost killed y’damned self. I hope it was worth it!”
“It was.”
Mircea gave up on the eye and sat back against the wall, feeling about as good as he looked. Horatiu got up again, fetching them both flagons of ale and tossing out the little bowl. Guess that was another thing that couldn’t be saved. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with other things.
“I have it,” Mircea said, as a tankard was put in front of him.
“Have what?”
“What have I been looking for? The solution.”
“That’s what ye said about the blessed kerchief of the many gold pieces,” Horatiu muttered, and drank ale.
“That was from a shyster—”
“And this isn’t?”
“No.” Mircea drank, to wash the feel of burnt flesh out of his mouth. “No.”
“And how do ye know that?”
Mircea told him.
It took a while, and at the end, Horatiu was staring at him in consternation. Or maybe that was the wonky eye. He couldn’t see out of it worth a damn.
“Are ye mad, boy?”
Or maybe not.
Mircea frowned. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Pleased? Ye’re talking about killing her!”
“Killing—” Mircea paused, because he obviously hadn’t explained well enough. “No. Just the disease. Vampirism is—”
“What you are!”
